


Hiraeth

by JayofOlympus



Category: Arthurian Mythology
Genre: Curses, Everyone Is Gay, Mordred is Arthur's Nephew, Mordred is Not the Bad Guy, Multi, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-27
Updated: 2018-03-27
Packaged: 2019-04-13 15:23:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14115252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JayofOlympus/pseuds/JayofOlympus
Summary: Mordred has watched his friends and family live and die, and be born anew, countless times since Arthur's final battle at Camlann.





	Hiraeth

In an old bookshop, beside an old university, in an old city, there stood two men. One of the men had hair as black as the void, and one had hair as white as snow, but both were very old too.

One day, late in 1967, the dark haired man sighed and closed the large tome he was paging through.

“I don’t know how much longer I can do this,” he said to his companion.

It was not the first time he had said those words over the long years, and the white haired man sometimes gave him different responses. Sometimes he would say nothing, and sometimes he would say “I know” or “I feel the same” or “it _has_ been a long time”.

“We must have patience,” he said this time. It was, again, not the first time he had said such.

The dark haired man often had different reactions to these words, too. Outbursts of anger were most common, or derisive comments about having had patience for quite long enough.

This time he just sighed.

“I am tired, Merlin,” he said, shoulders slumped as his fingers traced over the faded cover of the book in front of him. “Tired and old, and I’ve lost them again.”

The white haired man – Merlin – nodded, understanding very well how his companion felt.

“Look on the bright side, Mordred,” he said with false cheer, searching the shelves for a particular book, “At least we haven’t seen your old friend in a good long while.”

“That doesn’t bring my brothers back, Merlin,” Mordred sighed. “This eternal cycle of finding them and losing them every few decades weighs heavily on me. I grieve them as strongly every time as I did when they each were first lost. I would have Lancelot tied to my side every day until the end of time if I could save myself the grief of watching everyone die and my heart tearing to pieces for the thousandth time.”

***

_“Traitor! You dare betray your king?”_

_“He lies, Arthur; he wants only to sow discord in our ranks.”_

***

_“Gawain, my nephew, my closest friend, I ask your counsel. Your brother Mordred attacks his fellow knights and accuses them of treason without evidence. Some claim that he is the traitor, aiming to steal my throne.”_

_“Do not act rashly, Uncle; Mordred is my mother’s favourite, and she will not forgive you if you cause him harm. Nor will I.”_

***

_“You know the price of treason, Mordred, son of Lot and Morgause.”_

_“You would turn kinslayer, Brother? I’ll not allow you to favour some snake over my youngest son – my last gift from my dear husband – and I swear to you now that your three lives are bound forevermore; what ends my son will be the end of you and Lancelot also.”_

***

They met Bedwyr first, as they often did. Being one of the oldest of them from the beginning – Merlin excepted – he was the first to find them nearly every time, whenever he was in the same country.

It was the late ‘80s, and he was a young professor this time, teaching ancient languages to students interested in Old Welsh and Gaelic.

One day, two weeks before he was due to teach his first class at the university, he strolled into their bookshop, squinting at a list of books scribbled onto a scrap of paper. As the door clicked shut behind him, he glanced up at the tiny, crowded shop, with its overfull bookshelves and piles of tomes that simply wouldn’t fit on the shelves.

He took in the entire room in the space of a heartbeat, and turned his large eyes on the two shopkeepers, blinking slowly.

“Oh, it’s you. That’s odd,” he said, without a hint of the usual panic that tended to accompany the sudden emergence of memories of a hundred lives.

Mordred had always admired Bedwyr’s calm, collected nature, and how it allowed him to accept new situations without fuss. Situations such as this were a perfect example of his tolerant, adaptable personality.

The trio spent nearly two hours talking about the past, and about how they would proceed from there. Bedwyr slotted easily into their daily routine from then on, visiting them with coffee whenever he had time between classes and marking.

The next member of their merry band to join them was Morgana, breezing through town during the early ‘90s in the careless way she always did. The last time they had seen her, back in the 70s, she had been searching endlessly for more information on where Morgause had disappeared to all those centuries ago. Mordred was sure that she _had_ been searching, but she had clearly been sure to enjoy herself while she was at it.

She had a way of riling everyone up and then going on her merry way, leaving them all in the dust, reeling in her wake. This time, she helped organise a protest at the university, caused a minor scandal (and family drama) by sleeping with a professor and then his sister, and left Mordred and Merlin with a new book of spells each, giving them each a kiss on the cheek and a wink as she danced out of the shop one last time and disappeared again.

Bedwyr was the only person who seemed completely unruffled from the visit, as always. Merlin was sent into a flurry of studying due to the new spells that Morgana had gifted them with, hoping to find new information on their predicament from them.

Mordred, on the other hand, was left rather peeved by the whole thing. He was too used to Morgana to be truly infuriated, but beginning to get tired of her lack of helpfulness. She’d been doing the same thing since their curse began.

***

_“I’m as immortal as Merlin and your mother,” she’d said when he’d been surprised to see her forty years after Camlann._

_“I don’t know how to find your mother,” she’d said, when he’d begged her for help._

_“I’ll look for ways to break the curse,” she’d said, and disappeared for nearly sixty years, reappearing with no leads and only a couple of spells that were of no help whatsoever._

***

It had taken them a long time, trying every spell and magic they knew of, to discover that there was no way to break or lift the curse without Morgause, and nobody had seen or heard anything of her since Camlann.

After Morgana came Cai, which Mordred had not anticipated. Normally, Bedwyr would be followed by Bors or Pellinor, given that the three were of a similar age. Though it had happened before that one of the younger members of their group would arrive before some of the older members. On this occasion, Cai had been born nearly a decade earlier than he normally would be, and so found himself closer in age to Bedwyr than to Mordred’s brothers, who had not yet appeared.

Cai came to them already knowing who he was, having had a chance encounter with Nimue, the Lady of the Lake, as a child that had left the adults around him confused and unsettled by his changed demeanour. As soon as he had turned eighteen, he had begun to travel the length and breadth of Britain in hopes of finding the others, having had no real way to do so before then, and brought news with him when he arrived in their little bookshop one rainy day.

“Bors is quite happy down in the south of England,” he told them, poking at the massive tomes full of poetry that were displayed closest to the door. A copy of the complete works of Shakespeare seemed to have caught his attention. “He said that he might visit at times, but he’s settled and comfortable, and the memory of so many lifetimes weighs heavily on him, though he wouldn’t admit it.”

If there was one quality that Mordred admired in Cai, it was his perceptiveness. The man was often brash and hot-headed, but he was intelligent, and gave good counsel when his temper had not been tried. He had been a loyal friend and advisor to Arthur, all those long lifetimes ago, when none of them would ever have thought that any of this would come to pass.

“Pellinor is not yet ready to remember us, though I suspect he’ll find us before long, and I believe that most of the others are still too young.”

Cai was more obtrusive in their routine than Bedwyr had been, insisting that they spent more time out of the bookshop and constantly dragging them to the pub he had bought near the university. He even managed to convince Merlin – without consulting Mordred – to hire a student to work in the shop part time to give the two owners more time away from their precious books. Merlin mostly used the extra free time to return to the meticulous notes he had taken over the course of the centuries on everything to do with the curse and their lives after it. He had taken note of any and all patterns that could be found in births, deaths, and everything in between. Mordred hated the notes; they were nothing but a reminder of their cruel fate.

He found that Cai’s pub was as good a place as any to avoid Merlin’s notes, and indeed he didn’t mind the company too much either.

Pellinor arrived less than a year after Cai, staying only for a short period to reminisce over past lives. His active, curious mind had him always in motion, travelling the globe in search of knowledge. Mordred didn’t begrudge him his travels, knowing that they kept Pellinor from growing too close to any of them, and saving him the pain of losing them all.

Guinevere did not stay long either, when they met her in the later end of the ‘90s. She came only to satisfy her curiosity, otherwise keeping to herself on campus, where she studied international law. She refused to answer to anything other than Jennifer on the few occasions they spoke, and after completing her degree she asked that they not contact her unless she first contacted them. After that, she went abroad to work with refugees and displaced families, though she sent short letters every half a year or so. There wasn’t enough regularity to them for Mordred to think she was doing it on purpose, and he was inclined to think that she only remembered to think of them that often. She was doing important work though, as she often did.

Others drifted in and out of town over the years, wanting to stay in contact, but happy to live their own lives, away from the oppressive weight of the past. Caradoc and Tristan both visited frequently, but did not wish to become permanent fixtures in their little band. Culhwch and Olwen lived happily in town, and could often be found on the outskirts of the group, but were too wrapped up in their own happiness to truly join the core of it. Two of the Elaines found themselves in a similar arrangement, sharing a flat near the university.

They met Gawain in 2006 as a young student in his first year, nervously asking if they would display a flyer in their window for a society event. He fidgeted and mumbled his way through an explanation of the ceilidh being hosted by the LGBT society. Mordred had grinned and immediately set about finding tape to stick the flyer in the window. His brother had spent many lifetimes hiding the fact that he was attracted to more than just women, and Mordred was keen to foster a sense of pride in him this time.

His brother took a very long time to remember the truth of his existence. For ten years he was a friend to them, visiting the bookshop regularly and meeting them for drinks in Cai’s pub. He blossomed from a nervous eighteen year old, reluctant to confess to being bisexual, to a bold, confident man of twenty eight, unapologetically queer, and proud of his identity. He wore makeup often, and invited his friends to watch him perform in drag without showing any hint of the young man who had stumbled and stuttered over saying “LGBT” out loud.

Mordred was immensely proud of him, but still often found himself laughing at the predicaments that Gawain found himself in.

“They’re both so hot, and I’m so screwed,” Gawain whined, head down on the table.

Cai laughed loudly, patting his friend on the back, perhaps a little too hard, if Gawain’s wince was anything to go by.

“They’re your bosses,” Cai reminded him.

“And married. To each other,” Gawain added miserably.

“Exactly. So pull yourself together and get over it,” Cai said, still chuckling. Had Gawain’s pathetic pining not been the subject of discussion at least once a week. Cai’s advice may have seemed callous, but they had heard endless complaints from their friend about how terribly cursed he was to have two people who were, in his own words “unfairly attractive” around him for several hours a day, five days a week.

“They were definitely flirting with you though,” Mordred said, taking a swig of his drink to cover the sly smile that was threatening to emerge. “You should talk to them about it, even if it’s just to ask them to stop because they’re giving you the wrong idea.”

He was endlessly amused by his brother’s plight, and having met Bertilak de Hautdesert, it was even more amusing knowing that the cause of Gawain’s distress was none other than the Green Knight and his charming wife.

Two days later, at around ten in the morning, Gawain stumbled into the bookshop, looking as though he’d had an interesting night. He was wearing his tightest pair of jeans, and still had glitter smudged under his eyes from the night before, but the soft, expensive looking green jumper he wore was clearly not his own, and was at least a size too big for him. He looked as though he had barely slept.

“You utter bastard!” Gawain snapped as soon as he set eyes on Mordred. “You knew all along that they were as interested in me as I was in them! You’re the worst brother ever.”

Mordred simply gawked at him, unsure of how to respond.

“I... I remembered everything,” Gawain added, blushing now. “I don’t know why I didn’t remember before. Surely you should have been the one to make me remember?”

Mordred nodded slowly, taking this in. He had been distressed too, when Gawain had taken so long to remember.

“Merlin theorised that perhaps because the magic that caused this, and the magic that I use, is in your blood, you are somewhat resistant to its effects,” he said. “All the same, I am relieved that you know the truth now. Tell me more about how you learned that the Hautdeserts were interested.”

The two spent the rest of the day discussing their pasts, and Mordred cried that night in relief at finally having his oldest brother back.

Agravain, Gaheris, and Gareth had all arrived in the ten years after Gawain had. Gaheris had come first, and had spent more than a year with them before he remembered, though his memory came back to him slowly, first in dreams, and then in waking recollections. Agravain, however, had rather dramatically passed out in Cai’s pub, and was out of sorts for days afterward, trying to sort through hundreds of years worth of memories.

Gareth had arrived last of Mordred’s brothers, which was not surprising at all, given that he had only been a handful of years older than Mordred, and therefore among the youngest of their little group. What had surprised Mordred was that he brought Galahad with him.

Gareth’s memories returned just as abruptly as Agravain’s, though slightly less dramatically, given that he simply sank into his seat with wide eyes, breathing heavily and fighting back tears, whispering his brothers’ names to himself as if seeing them returned to him from the grave. Mordred supposed that it must have seemed that way to him, given that he himself was the only one of them who had not died.

Galahad took a little longer to remember than Gareth did, though the two remained remarkably close. There was a certain tension between them caused by Gareth keeping the memories from Galahad, and he often looked wistful when he spoke to Mordred of Galahad’s lack of memory of their past lives, but even still the two were inseparable. Mordred was somewhat surprised by that too, given that he had never thought of the two as being particularly close friends; at least, no closer than any two people who shared in deadly adventures together usually were. Given that the two had also shared such adventures with the rest of them, it was rather confusing. It was clear that there was no romantic connection between the two, though Gareth remained much closer with Galahad than with any romantic partners he did have. One girlfriend even left him because of it, but Gareth had simply shrugged it off, saying that she wasn’t worth the effort if she refused to accept his friendship with Galahad.

It all began to make a little more sense the day Galahad burst into Cai’s pub, face flushed and wearing a bright grin.

“There’s a word for it!” he crowed, grabbing Gawain by the shoulders to shake him.

Gawain, still half-asleep from having been out all night for a performance, had blinked at the nineteen year old, confused and alarmed by the sudden display of excitement.

“A word for what?” Merlin asked politely, likely just trying to move Galahad along to an explanation so that he would quieten down.

“All of it,” Galahad said breathlessly; almost reverently, in fact. “I finally have a word for how I’ve felt for...”

All of the colour drained suddenly from his face, and he looked as though he might throw up. Mordred knew in an instant that his memories had returned, and Gawain seemed to have worked it out too, if the concerned tone he spoke with was anything to go by.

“You were saying that you’ve found a word for how you’ve felt?” he coaxed gently, guiding Galahad to a chair.

Galahad nodded absently, though he didn’t look any less ill.

“A word for how I’ve felt for centuries,” he said. “I’ve lived countless lives; had so many varied experiences, and yet I’ve only just discovered a word to describe one of the few constants in all of those lives.”

Gawain nodded sympathetically.

“I understand what you’re feeling,” he said, placing a hand on Galahad’s shoulder. “The first time I had a word for any of what I feel, for my bisexuality, and for my gender nonconformity, it was overwhelming, and frustrating, because it feels as though you have been barred for so long from an essential part of yourself. Finally having the words to describe yourself is freeing, but it comes with the cost of discovering that you were caged in the first place.”

“What word did you discover?” Mordred asked, voice soft. He didn’t want to interrupt the moment, but he knew Galahad well enough to know that once he spoke the words out loud, he would feel a great weight lift from his shoulders.

“Where is Gareth?” Galahad asked, looking around for his friend. “I asked him to meet me here; I want him to hear this too.”

Within a moment of having said those words, Gareth emerged from the bathroom, looking around the group in confusion.

“What did I miss?” he asked, moving immediately to Galahad’s side to check that he was alright.

Galahad took a deep breath and stood again, giving Gareth a shaky smile as he did so.

“I am asexual,” he announced, keeping direct eye contact with his friend. “And I am also aromantic. I do not feel sexual or romantic attraction toward anyone. However, you and I have the sort of bond that goes beyond either of those, even though it is platonic, and I want you to know that I love you.”

Gareth nodded slowly, a grin spreading across his face.

“I love you too, dude,” he said, pulling Galahad in for a crushing hug. “So does this mean we’re, like, platonic partners or something?”

Galahad blushed, having clearly not thought that far ahead.

“If that’s something you want,” he said, shrugging nonchalantly.

“Cool, we’re partners,” Gareth said, still grinning as he pulled Galahad in for another hug.

Such declarations were obviously cause for drinks, which Cai happily supplied, and soon the entire group had taken up half the pub, congratulating the partners and using the excuse to get drunk.

Mordred settled into his seat and watched the festivities with a warmth in his chest that he didn’t often feel. It was good to see everyone in the same place again, and it felt almost like home. If he closed his eyes, he could imagine that they were back in Arthur’s hall in Camelot, celebrating someone’s victorious homecoming. Arthur would have been the first to give congratulations, and he would have had the poets sing something cheerful.

Opening his eyes again, Mordred looked around the group. His brothers all stood around Galahad, Agravain and Gaheris thumping him and Gareth on the back as they said something that set everyone around them laughing.

Bedwyr, Bors, and Pellinor had all claimed a quieter corner to speak, likely of academic things, and Mordred could see Merlin making his way toward them.

Cai held court at the bar, giving a dramatic telling of one of his and Arthur’s earliest adventures to Tristan, Elaine, and Percival, while Caradoc gave advice to Culhwch and Olwen at a table nearby.

It was so close to perfect that Mordred could almost cry. It was the missing faces which did cause tears to slip free though. His uncle, and Guinevere were the most obviously missing. The scene felt almost empty without them, since he knew just how thrilled they would have been at seeing their friends and family so happy. He felt keenly, though, the absences of others; Ector, and Vivienne, Erec and Enide, Hector, Lanval, and Lyonesse, and Mabon, Morien, and Palamedes. So many were not there to see their happiness, and it was all Mordred could do not to weep at the knowledge that a day would come soon when he would lose all of those around him again, except one white haired old wizard who frequently became so absorbed in his books that he could go weeks without speaking to anyone.

A hand on his shoulder startled him out of his sad thoughts, and he glanced up to see Gawain smiling sadly at him.

“I know you, Brother, and I know how you must be feeling,” Gawain said. “Just enjoy the happy moments while they last, fleeting as they might be, and then look forward to when more happy moment will come.”

“Always so wise, Sir Gawain,” Mordred teased, shaking off his sombre mood.

“You’re always so serious, Mordred,” Gawain said, laughing. “Come join the party.”

Mordred spent the rest of the night taking his brother’s advice to heart, enjoying the moment while he had it. It wouldn’t last, but he intended to make the most of it.

The peace was shattered, however, no more than two months later, when Mordred was tidying the bookshop one Thursday evening, preparing to close up, and a bedraggled man stumbled in, looking lost.

Mordred turned, ready to greet a customer, and froze when he saw the man.

“It... it has been a long time,” Lancelot said, hands stuffed into his jacket pockets.

Mordred eyed him warily, vividly remembering their last encounter. It had been June of 1919, and Mordred had been roused from his reading by a pounding at the door, opening it to find himself face to face with the man who had been the cause of their curse. Lancelot had carried a French officer’s pistol, which told Mordred what his enemy had been doing during the War while Mordred himself had been in the trenches with scared young soldiers, and there was a wild look in his eye.

Mordred had wanted to laugh then, in his too-small flat in Glasgow, knowing that Lancelot had come to try again. Since Camlann, Lancelot had made countless attempts to kill him, though none had worked, and he surely had learned quickly that it was a hopeless effort. That day had been no different than the others, to begin with, and the tiny flat had been all but destroyed in the ensuing fight, but Lancelot had begun to sob in the aftermath, sitting in the midst of broken things, that Mordred had fled, unsure of what to do.

“I am not here to fight,” Lancelot said, hunching in on himself as he seemed to notice Mordred’s tension. “I know that I cannot make amends for any of what I have done,” he said, clearly steeling himself, “But I cannot carry on the conflict between us for any longer. I... I am tired Mordred, and I have been for so long that I cannot remember what life felt like before.”

Mordred nodded solemnly. He was intimately aware of how the centuries could take their toll on the spirit.

“Let me make you a cup of tea,” he offered, beckoning Lancelot through to the back of the shop, where the stairs to the flat he and Merlin shared were hidden away.

A wisp of magic locked the shop door behind them as they ascended, and Lancelot flinched as it swept past him. It seemed that he had not forgotten the kind of power held by those with Morgause’s blood.

“It was the War that broke me, I think,” Lancelot said over a half-finished cup of tea, refusing to meet Mordred’s eyes. “So much senseless killing, and so many young lives lost, that I refused to believe that it was not the prophesied hour of Arthur’s return. I had been alive so long that I didn’t care about power or thrones or crowns anymore; I didn’t care about Arthur himself at all anymore. When I found you in Glasgow, I thought it must have been a sign that things had finally come to an end; I hadn’t been looking for you there, just wandering through trying to find some semblance of purpose in the aftermath of such a tragedy.”

Mordred nodded, having felt much the same when the War ended. He had been sure that his uncle would return, and had been sickened by the things he saw on the front lines during his time there.

“I thought that I could finally rest,” Lancelot whispered, tears flowing freely. “If Arthur had returned, and put an end to the war, then I could finally pass from this world and be free. So when I saw you, I thought I had my chance.”

“It never occurred to you that worse things could happen to our island,” Mordred said, not unkindly. He understood. After all, he had not thought such a thing possible either.

They sat in silence for a moment, Mordred refilling their cups with his magic while they both pondered over the conversation.

“Where have you been since then?” Mordred asked, curious. “It has been nearly a century since we last met, and I have heard nothing of your whereabouts since then.”

The two spent hours discussing what had passed since their last meeting, and then hours more on what they each had missed before then. It wasn’t perfect, nor even particularly comfortable, but Mordred had lived long enough now to know when to leave the past well enough alone. Lancelot’s past crimes were not forgiven, but Mordred alone could not absolve him when so many others had been hurt.

Lancelot would join them, slowly, but none would forget that he was the reason for the missing faces at their table when they drank together, and Mordred would not forget that it was Lancelot’s plotting that had caused them to be cursed in the first place.

**Author's Note:**

> This is what happens when an Arthurian Literature class gets out of hand. Inspiration came from a discussion about the earliest mention of Mordred not saying anything about him fighting against Arthur.  
> Massive thank you to FrenckKey for making me finish this.


End file.
